The legal procedure in a liquidation (or straight bankruptcy) is fairly
straightforward. A court-appointed trustee sells the firm's assets, and creditors
are paid in full for their claims in the following order: first, administrative
expenses of bankruptcy, including lawyers' fees and other expenses incurred
after the start of bankruptcy proceedings; second, taxes; third, wages up to
$600 per worker and rent due to landlords; fourth, unsecured creditors; and
last, equity holders. Secured creditors having liens on particular assets can reclaim
their property or its value. If their claims exceed the value of the security,
they become unsecured creditors for the remainder. Bondholders, bank lenders,
and trade creditors each may be secured, unsecured, or partially secured
creditors. If many claimants, such as unsecured creditors, have the same
priority, then all are paid an equal fraction of the face value of their claims.
We refer to the general ordering of claims as the absolute priority rule
(APR) and the division within classes of creditors having the same priority as
the proportionate priority rule (PPR). Note that the me-first rule is a special
case of the APR when bondholders are fully secured and all other claimants
are unsecured.